PEKIN — Tazewell County prosecutors are preparing to take three people to trial if necessary for allegedly looting valuables from the homes destroyed and damaged by the massive tornado that struck Washington last November.

The State’s Attorney’s Office, however, has not pursued charges against three other people who were arrested when police found them picking through apparently discarded items three weeks after the storm.

The cases mark the difference between alleged theft and, as one prosecutor described it, “aggressive scrapping.”

Ayron Casey, 51, of Eureka, has asked for a judge to decide her case in a bench trial Oct. 1 for felony theft, the most serious of the charges facing the three defendants in the two separate cases still being pursued.

An EF-4 tornado demolished or heavily damaged more than 1,000 Washington homes and caused the deaths of two people on Nov. 17. The city was still shell-shocked three weeks later when Casey was arrested while filling her vehicle with items from a badly damaged home at 1518 Flossmoor Ave.

“Am I not supposed to be here?” she reportedly asked the police officer who confronted her. Casey said she thought “enough time had passed” since the tornado to permit her to pick from its debris, according to a court affidavit.

She was sentenced in 2001 to two years’ probation for felony retail theft and did not successfully complete the term, according to court records.

The second case is scheduled to produce trials next month and in December.

Barring plea agreements, Mary Wade, 52, of Peoria, will face a jury Sept. 8 and Percy Jones, 63, also of Peoria, will do the same Dec. 9 on charges of misdemeanor theft and criminal trespass to property.

They were charged following their arrests in April when neighbors alerted police to their presence on properties the tornado had destroyed four months earlier. Wade had taken a radio and a vacuum cleaner from property at 821 Westminster Drive, according to the charges, while Jones allegedly entered a basement of one of the homes.

All three defendants have remained free on bond.

Three other Peorians — Sherry Wallace, 51, Andrew Wallace Jr., 25, and Antonio Giles, 30, were arrested Dec. 10 after they were seen picking through items generally left along curbs as residents cleared their properties of items and debris left by the storm.

The were given notices to appear in court in January, but no formal charges were filed against them.